Mac Users: Does it seem you use your AppleCare a lot?

[kijip]

I am super glad we bought the AppleCare with our MacBook Pros last Spring. In a year, the 2 computers have been in for 3 repairs. Most recently, I had to get a new hard drive. Ugh. I have not had to pay anything but I am worried that this is a huge slip in quality over our old Macs. What gives? These are not 1st generation MacBook Pros.

On a positive note, my new hard drive came with Leopard, which was not yet out when we bought these last year. Pretty cool upgrade in features. :)

On the flip side, even with the warranty they had a pretty new but dead PC laptop my brother owned had to be replaced at their full expense- the company did not honor the warranty under some loophole. So I like that AppleCare is hassle free more or less.

[Davids-Coco]

I used mine once... when my DS gave himself a little shock with the power cord by putting the magnetic part in his mouth and. I honestly didn't know you could do that. But he freaked and did something more akin to spitting up, ruined the connector, and they replaced it without question.

I think it is worth it. If you come up against a problem, then they fix it with no problems at all. Love it! That and pro care (which I think is now 1 on 1)... pro care will help you with anything on any mac you own... great if you have ipods, macs, iphones, etc. They help you do what you want to do.

[caheinz]

Applecare is worth every penny on the laptop lines as well as the iMac lines. The reason why is that they are made with so many fragile and fallible components that are difficult to replace (unlike the non-iMac desktops, which are much more user-configurable after purchase). In addition, repairs on these lines are expensive enough that you will typically recoup your expense on the first repair.

I'm on my third Mac laptop. The first one went in a few times for miscellaneous isues. The second one went in a lot, and about 1-2 months after Applecare ran out, they replaced it with my current one *at no cost*, finally admitting that it had been in too often after I wrote a complaint letter when the last Applecare repair was being re-repaired at a snail's pace. (I, of course, immediately purchased Applecare for the new one!) This one has been in less often than my first.

As the components get smaller and lighter, they're simply more prone to failure.

[chlobo]

I have had almost every component replaced on my iBook since we bought it. I'm on my third hard drive & my screen just started to go dark so it will be back for that. I wrote a complaint letter but they refused to give me a new one, even tho this one cries LEMON. They told me they just don't do that sort of thing. But in less than 3 years it had been in for service at least 10 times.

And truly, this machine doesn't go anywhere except the kitchen counter & the living room.

[KBecks]

I've used mine twice and it's been well worth it. Once it died, a power problem and Apple did a $700 repair which included restoring all my data. Then my power cord died and I got a new one free as well.

I just signed up for .Mac to have an offsite backup but am having problems getting started. I need to update my OS but am having difficulty. May need to go see a genius but I'm trying emailing support first.

[brittone2]

We used it on my iBook (bought several years ago). I had some major issue happen (I can't even remember what it was now sadly) and it was almost out of warranty. I started googling and found a ton of people that had the same problem.

It would have been a several hundred dollar repair.